The Aplington-Parkersburg and South Hardin summer sports teams split Wednesday. The Tigers won the softball game 10-4 and the Falcons won the baseball game 11-6.
In the softball game, the Tigers scored in each of the first four innings for a 5-0 lead. But the Falcons answered on a Jordan Trueblood RBI in the bottom of the fourth to cut the deficit to four. After two scoreless innings, South Hardin scored five in the seventh. Kaitlynn Dickes, Lexie Tidman and Taya Hollingsworth each drove in runs. The Tigers also scored on a passed ball and an error. In the bottom of the seventh, Aubrey Williamson, Julia Mostek and Sophia Junker each drove in runs, but the rally ended short. Falcon coach Emily Williamson.
“They’re a good team, they hit the ball really hard,” Williamson says. “We had a couple errors defensively. Early on we were hitting the ball, just right to people. Finally last inning, too little too late but we were finally hitting the ball really well the bottom of the bottom of the seventh, but it was just too short.”
South Hardin coach Becky Rosonke says it was a productive late-season game.
“We had solid hits, played pretty good,” Rosonke says. “We only had a couple errors, nothing really added up, but I think they did pretty good overall. We were working on some things last inning with Haley, just some stuff that wasn’t working very well and just trying to get through some stuff because we do have to prepare for regionals here pretty soon and just got to make sure everything’s going. Haley went four for four. I mean that was pretty big. Girls were hitting the ball solid tonight.”
Hailey Rosonke was 4-for-4 with three RBIs. She pitched the complete game with five strikeouts, no walks and seven hits. Trueblood and Eva Walker led the Falcons with two hits each, including two doubles by Trueblood. Aubrey Williamson was the pitcher of record with two strikeouts, three walks and four hits in three innings. AP (8-12, 5-7 NICL-C) will host Grundy Center Friday. South Hardin (14-11, 6-3 NICL-W) will be at Roland-Story Thursday.
In the baseball game, the Falcons scored three in the second, four in the third and two in the sixth to pull away after a back-and-forth start. Wes Shirk was the winning pitcher with three strikeouts, one walk and eight hits in 4.1 innings pitched. Sully Janssen and Cooper Hoff each had two hits. AP (13-7, 7-5 NICL-C) will be at Dunkerton Friday. South Hardin (12-9, 8-3 NICL-W) will be at Roland-Story Thursday.
